Star Trek: First Frontier

The official film makers of the franchise could take a few pointers from this film. Made my people who love the genre and starring people who can act (I can't say that for every fan film I've seen), First Frontier tells the story of the first flight of the USS Enterprise under the command of the rarely seen Robert April. Not all is roses for the crew, either. The ship's commander is suffering from burn out and probable PTSD, he's not connected to his wife and even the new comms officer has an "interesting" past. I would like to see more of these characters. Most of the special effects were decently created CGI (I had to forgive the creator of the title sequence), although the effect for the evil aliens' eyes were terrible. If I had one main complaint, it was the sound engineering. The music borrowed heavily from James Horner's STII:TWOK soundtrack and the sound effects were OK, however the mix often drowned out the dialog and I often could not make out what was being said. That, and the editing left me wondering what was going on at times. A bit more TLC in post production and this movie could easily have earned at least one more star. All that being said, it's a great flic and, story-wise, it's an improvement on the flashy, often brainless, films fans have had to endure in recent years. A return to real Star Trek. Keep up the good work!

Others have commented on the poor sound and I have to agree. The movie doesn't seem to have been mastered to a consistent level which makes it difficult to follow and spoils the whole thing.

A great action adventure, classic Trek movie with great characterization. Very enjoyable from the starting credits (featuring a Nichelle voiceover) to the end. Great music (also featuring a Nichelle voiceover) to the end. The special effects, while not always excellent in some setups (you could tell the actors were playing before a green screen in some shots) werre still very good, and largely on a par with the original series or beyond. Liked the andorian communications officer. The uniforms and make up were good, so glad to see no overproduction in these things, which so often happened in other productions merely because they had the funds. Anyone who appreciated the original series should love this movie, as I did. Far superior to anything put by network showrunners.

Yes the sound was a distraction. But is a minor thing considering how good the story is. Brianna Ferris as Lieutenant Lyra is a high point for me, as the details and fanboy details. id love to see this company get another shot.

Ok the reviews here are all over the place, people who love the original Trek giving it high marks for 'staying true..' while others giving low marks because of poor production values.

But lets be honest here, you have to review the ENTIRE movie, not just whether its 'Trek' or not and whether its 'production value' is good or not. It all ads up. Honestly, would anyone give the "Empire Strikes Back" a 10 if the music was to "Henry Mancini's - Baby Elephant Walk"? Probably not.

So lets break it down:

Acting: Not bad considering I have seen worse acting from supposed "A" list movies. Most of the actors had experience and they did fine but lets try to remember not to give a speaking part to your buddy 'Ralph' who shows up on the set to wish you luck. Maybe a silent role in the background. A good 6

Plot/Scrip: Again, you have to weight this against everything that came before, I honestly believe this script was better than most of the Abrams movies, could it have been better, sure. At least the script didn't ruin the movie. Not to bad for a 'fan' made film. Solid 6

Special Visual Effects: Considering the quality of the 'Fan made' stuff out there, this was a big MISS. I mean, there are SOOOO sooo many people out there who could have helped you do this so much better and would not have charged you a dime. The Ships looked like 1980s CGI and the Phazer effects look worse than classic Doctor Who. You are lucky I gave you a 3

Costume and makeup: I am going to lump this into one to save on time, the Uniforms were nice but not tailor made for each actor and it showed. Everyone looked a bit frumpy. Make up was solid, though the Tellerite make up made me wince, and the Alien intruders costumes were laughable. Solid 3

Now lets address the monkey in the room. I am going to put Sound and Editing into one last category because I have NO idea how and where they screwed up the sound so badly that it could not be fixed in post, but I have friends who have IMBD pages that work for Independent films that could have helped fix some of the problems. I am NOT in the industry, though I am a member of IATSE and have worked as an audio engineer for 30 years, and if they hired an audio tech with only 5 years experience, they could have had better sound out of this movie. I feel like MOST of the problem was in post, the editing of the music would often drown out the actors speaches, or inversely over drive the audio and make ones ears burst because you had to turn the volume up to hear what they were saying. So sound and editing gets a nice fat 1!

Now I am going to add a bonus because this IS a fan made project and I fully understand the logistics and effort they gave to making this a reality. 5 points

All in all it is far from the BEST fan film of TOS I have ever seen but FAR from the worst. I am glad I spent the time watching it and know that I gave this a higher rating than any Abramstrekabomination.

Yes, I am a Trekie, Yes I am old, Yes Kirk over Pikard as he is the total package and Pikard needed Ryker to be equal to Kirk.